Project Reprisal
by ZeefahZzi
Summary: After defeating Hargrove's forces during the battle of Chorus, the crew gets stranded on a forest planet with extreme weather conditions. Times get more difficult when they encounter clones of Project Freelancer agents. Who created them? What's their intention? The crew will have to find out for themselves as they meet an old friend.
1. Escape

This story takes place after the events of the Chorus Trilogy.

The Reds and Blues stand at the ready as Hargrove's troops continue to break down the door. Epsilon makes his grand speech and deconstructs into many AI fragments, powering the Meta Suit donned by Tucker. Speech is over and the room goes eerily silent for a while. A few moments later, an explosion sends the door flying directly towards Tucker. In the eyes of Tucker and his acquired time-manipulation ability, he was startled to see the door approaching so slowly, so gracefully. Instantly captivated by the slo-mo explosion, he thought to himself how awesome all of that was. With the voice of Epsilon-Gamma guiding him, he managed to rewind time, pushing the relevant people out of the way before re-engaging the incoming door and enemies. Door embedding itself into the wall behind the team, the shooting begins. Being the trained soldiers that they are, they managed to hold their ground against the basic-level henchmen.

When the first wave of enemies has been cleared out, Tucker instructs the rest to get out of the room and follow his lead. They make their way into the wide and tall corridors of the compound. Not long after they make their first left turn, a Mantis comes bursting through the outer wall. And then another. And another. However, these weren't just regular Manti, for they were clad in black metallic armour with neon blue decals around. Must be the elite class, running on their own servers. Now they are faced with 3 overpowered Manti aiming their weapons at the Reds and Blues. With a confident "I got this", Tucker gestures the rest to back off and proceeds to test out his new powers. Immediately, he turns invisible, heading towards the nearest wall to the closest Mantis. He ran up the wall and jumps off with great force, delivering a powerful punch to the side of the first Mantis, still confused as to where he has gone. Underestimating the true power of his super strength, the Mantis explodes in a ball of fire, sending Tucker flying through the wall he was just on. With a quick time reversal, Tucker adjusts his trajectory such that the blast propels him towards the Mantis at the back, decimating it in the process. However, the third Mantis turns its attention to face the rest of the Reds and Blues. Seeing this move long beforehand, the second Mantis' explosion propels him towards the Reds and Blues. Using his future-sight again, whilst he is still in the air, he releases a bubble shield at the right moment and before the Mantis got to finish its clip, it had already been uppercut into an incendiary mess.

That was the end of it. The gang eventually get picked up by Carolina and Wash in a Pelican and they all proceed to clear up the rest of Hargrove's troops. Once that is done, they say their goodbyes to the relevant folk on Chorus, with Kimball being the only person who knows where they are going. After returning to raid some loot from the treasure room, the crew head off in the Pelican, with prospects of a peaceful life on a desolate planet, free from the chaos of war. With Carolina behind the wheel and the rest of the crew in the passenger bay, they head towards an uninhabited planet. Tucker places the Meta suit in sitting position in one of the right row seats, all the way at the back. He proceeds to don his regular Spartan suit. And so Grif sits on the floor eating food as always. Wash, Tucker, Simmons, Donut and Sarge discuss their next course of action. Meanwhile, Caboose sits at the back of the Pelican facing the Meta suit, replaying Epsilon's final message over and over again. He still can't believe Church is gone for good this time.

As tears begin to well up in his eyes again, the Meta suit begins blinking bright red and beeping non-stop.


	2. Welcome to Coda

"Caboose! What the F did you just do?" Tucker yells, startled by the close-to-exploding Meta suit. Like everybody else in the passenger bay, Tucker begins to panic, fumbling about with the suit in an attempt to deactivate it. This was to no avail and the dreaded words are uttered.

"Self-destruct sequence initiated," an ominous voice reverberates through the pelican.

"What's going on back there?" Carolina turns to look behind, only to see that the entire bay is illuminated by a brilliant crimson light.

Just as they are about to respond, the deep voice continues.

"10… 9… 8…"

Carolina knew that she didn't have enough time to open the Pelican back door. So, upon hearing the countdown, Carolina leaps out of her driver's seat and enters the passenger bay as quickly as she possibly could. She was too late.

"...2 ...1"

Carolina still racing towards the suit with arm stretched out, the suit explodes in a plethora of colours. Beams of distinctly coloured light strike our fellow comrades. A split-second later, the suit explodes, tossing the crew to the interior walls of the Pelican. At the same time, a large chunk of the Pelican gets blown off, including its right rear thruster. Being the first to recover from the shock of the blast, Carolina leaps back into the driver's seat to try to manoeuvre the Pelican. Her efforts proved to be futile, for the left thruster was locked on full thrust mode, causing the Pelican to swerve gently to the right. Not long after, a red light in the cockpit indicates full systems failure imminent. Eventually, all lights turn off and all thrusters shut down. In a fit of fury, Carolina slams her fists onto the dashboard, frustrated at the sequence of events that had just occurred. As the ship continues gliding through space, Carolina storms into the passenger bay and demands an explanation. In unison, everybody points at Caboose.

Caboose looks down, for the memory of Epsilon's passing remains fresh in his head. It haunts him, distracting him from the impending doom that is Carolina's wrath. Carolina stomped towards Caboose, finger pointing towards him. However, before she could say a word, Wash points out that the Meta suit never had a self-destruct button. The explosion wasn't Caboose's fault. Carolina backs off, rudely gesturing Tucker to speak with Caboose.

"What happened?"

"Um err… one moment Church's voice was there and then the next, the blinky light went on…"

"Yes, ok, but did anyt…"

"Hey, guys… is it just me or is that planet getting bigger?" Donut whimpers in fear as the Pelican begins to accelerate towards the planet.

The crew looks out to the cockpit window, only to see a dark green planet slowly but surely approaching. Carolina knew that she had to reboot the systems to even stand a chance of landing the Pelican or steering it away from the planet. She summons Wash to try to fix the ship. Upon instruction, by Wash who holds the manual, Carolina unhesitantly takes her grappling hook, exits the Pelican through the gaping hole at the back and grapples onto the underside of the Pelican. With communication, progress is made in restoring the ship. However, the planet continues to come closer and it was a matter of time before they entered its atmosphere. Removing panel after panel and reconnecting wire after wire, Carolina does exactly as she is told by Wash, at the fastest speed she could go. Looking up and seeing the planet enlarge, she quickens the pace. All efforts pay off and they do manage to fix the ship, performing a nail-biting sweep of the surface below. The crew rejoice as they ascend.

However, this was an early celebration, for a storm spontaneously appears, engulfing the skies in Batman-grey clouds. Not reacting quickly enough to the new development, the ship gets struck by lightning. Left thruster catches fire and the hurricane-level winds send the Pelican spiralling out of control. Carolina continues to commandeer the vessel but unsurprisingly, her efforts were futile. The ship was going to crash no matter what she did. Everyone grabbing nearby handles and dragging themselves into seats, the crew braces for impact, with the Reds and Blues saying some stupid goodbye speech as they usually do.

The Pelican crashes.


	3. Agent Hartford

Dazed by the crash, everyone struggles to get up. Temporarily blinded and deafened, Wash wakes up first to see the fuel tank rupture. With the Pelican's nose embedded into the ground, fuel starts dripping, trickling into the cockpit which is currently on fire. Adrenaline starts pumping as Wash orders, "Everybody out now!"

Wash turns his attention to the cockpit. There sat Carolina's unconscious body, slowly being engulfed by the flames. Being the pilot, her body had taken the largest impact out of all of them. So she sat there. Helpless.

Wash, still recovering from the shock, limps towards the cockpit, nearly hit by a sparky cable that had just fallen from the ceiling. As the Reds and Blues continue to complain their way out the hole of the Pelican, Wash continues to come to Carolina's rescue. Braving the heat of the fire and the numbing of senses, Wash carries Carolina, struggling to ascend the sloped Pelican floor. Consistently but feebly, he calls out for Carolina's name, in an attempt to wake her up. She doesn't. Nevertheless, he manages to carry her out, only to realise that now he has to face the stormy weather conditions and the dense forest, dimly lit by the lone moon of the planet amidst the mostly empty night sky. Looking around, he notices a teal armour waving towards him. He still could not hear, but he knew for sure he wasn't imagining it. Tucker rushes to Wash's aid and helps him carry Carolina, both supporting her arms as they walk towards a nearby cave.

Lightning striking and winds howling, Wash and Tucker trudge slowly, climbing over fallen trees and avoiding flames as much as possible. Not long after, Wash sees a faint light emanating from behind a tree. It was base camp. Wash and Tucker persevere and manage to get into the cave where the Reds and Blues are busy accounting for every member. The cave's entrance was about 10 feet in diameter, irregularly shaped. The interior was deep. Wide. They could only see as far as their light-sticks could illuminate. Checking the surroundings for any danger, Wash slumps onto a wall, his eyes slowly shutting. Only then did he notice the metal fragment sticking out from his abdomen. He sleeps, leaving the rest of the Reds and Blues to figure out an escape plan.

Wash wakes up, the gleam of the sun causing him to cover his eyes. He looks around, noticing that he is on a rock bed, with one single smooth stone supporting his head. He looks down, seeing that his wound has been patched up. Bandaged and treated. He gets up with an agonising moan and looks for people who were awake. Nada. Everyone was passed out, just lying on the floor. Who could blame them? After all, they've been through a lot the past few days. Wash continues to look around. He saw opened crates of food beside where Grif was sleeping, a stash of medkits and a bunch of lights and heaters keeping the crew warm. Intriguingly, Carolina was nowhere to be found. Sure, he was still injured, but he still had to look around for her. Soon deducing that Carolina must have gone outside, Wash limps out, affected by his now-painful injury. The scenery was beautiful. The 100-foot cliff face, the hexagonal columnar downwards steps out of the cave, all made of intricately yet basalt. A mere 30 feet away from the cave entrance lay the forest. Incredibly dense, the forest features 40-foot trees, with a very thick canopy layer. Many large and exotic leaves block out the sun, leaving little to no light on the forest floor.

And so Carolina sat on one of those steps, looking into the forest. She seems troubled. As Wash approaches, without even looking, Carolina firmly informs Wash, "We need to call for help. And for that, we need to extract the radio from the crashed Pelican. I need your help to do it. I don't think these idiots can do it," to which Wash nods his head.

They both head out into the forest. It was an awfully silent walk. Carolina was just too occupied thinking of the next plan of action. Wash, knowing this, leaves her to her own thoughts. They eventually reach the crashed Pelican, which was still intact despite the fuel leakage the night before.

Whispering, Carolina reaches her right hand out to the right to stop Wash right in his tracks.

"Shh, there's somebody here…"

She then gestures for Wash to go to a more hidden location amongst the trees. Both of them draw their weapons and get a better angle of the intruder. Behind the Pelican, they notice a soldier with brown armour. The soldier just slowly walked around the Pelican, scanning the Pelican using a vertically panning laser array inbuilt into the helmet. As the soldier looped around, Wash and Carolina get a good glimpse of the armour. EOD helmet and chest, with Scout shoulders. However, it must be noted that the visor was an unusual black colour. Wash, mere moments after looking at the armour, recognised the unique armour, speaking in an unintentionally loud manner, "Connie?"

The soldier glances in their direction and makes a run for it, disappearing behind the Pelican. Carolina runs after the soldier while Wash tries to circle around the Pelican from the other direction. They manage to trap the soldier, with Carolina on one side and Wash on the other. The soldier turns to Wash, and then to Carolina.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Carolina sternly demands an answer.

No response. Not even a flinch.

Carolina takes minute steps towards the soldier, noticing that Wash's armour got a little distorted behind the soldier. Without notice, the soldier vanishes. It was a hologram. Giving no time to vent out their frustrations, a beeping noise is heard from within the Pelican. The two of them manage to get out of the blast radius of the explosion. Radio now disintegrated, how do they escape?

Although this one question plagues their minds and infuriates them, one other question remains in their minds. Who was that?

Admitting defeat after trying to find the radio amongst the debris, both of them scavenged whatever they could find. Nothing much, just some stray magazines full of ammunition. They head back, discussing the encounter they just had.

"Before you point out... yes… CT is supposed to be dead…"

"Then who the h…"

"I don't know… but I'm not interested in sticking around to find out. We need to get out of here."

"Yea but… did you see the black visor? That's not normal. It could be dangerous. Plus, whoever is behind this has replicated Connie's armour perfectly, even the hologram ability. Don't you find that even a little suspicious?"

Reminiscing about the time Tex fatally wounded CT, Carolina stutters, but answers "Yes… very. But we still need to get out of here. We are in no condition to be starting a war."

Wash agrees, and they both rush back to the cave to inform the rest. With the sun already setting, Wash and Carolina call Simmons and Tucker, who were out getting supplies, to go inside, where they were about to have a team meeting.

Unbeknownst to them, they have been followed this whole journey back to the cave. 40 feet deep into the forest and 30 feet off the ground, two soldiers, clad in purple armour and green accents, sat perched on thick branches.

The one whose armour bore the darker shade of purple wielded a sniper rifle, zooming into the cave. In a deep yet impeccably German accent, he spoke on the radio.

"Agents Bismarck and Pierre to Washington AC. We've found them."


	4. Ambushed

A female voice responds.

"Very good, Agent Bismarck. Proceed with the assignment. Scout their base later in the night. See what they're up to. We must not let anyone interfere with our plans. We are so close."

"Yes, ma'am."

With this, Bismarck and Pierre turn to each other, nodding their heads in mutual acknowledgement of the order.

As twilight turns to dusk, the forest dims. The Reds and Blues start to go to sleep while Wash and Carolina decide to go on a little adventure of their own.

"So how far do you think this cave goes?"

"I have no idea. I don't even know which planet we are on. This entire journey may be a mistake, but we have no choice."

Still walking into the depths of the cave system, Carolina looks down, her helmet light illuminating the cave floor. She looks defeated, knowing that supplies are running low and there is no way of calling for help.

"Hey Wash?"

"Yeah?"

"What if… What if CT is not the only Freelancer duplicate out there?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, the armour we saw today 100% resembles that of CT, apart from the visor. That, along with the Hologram ability, is an extremely unlikely combination. Don't you find it a little suspicious?"

"I… don't know… Do you think we'll see the other Freelancers too?"

As they trek deeper into the cave, they find a great amount of nothing. But as long as it was dark and dangerous outside, they had no other option.

The sun completely sets behind the horizon, turning the sky perfectly black. Pierre taps on Bismarck's shoulder. He speaks in a rather high-pitched male voice, with a contrastingly French accent.

"It's time. All of them should be asleep by now."

With a nod, both of them descend from the tree, making as little sound as possible. It didn't matter though, for the wind produces a cacophony of noise as it blows through the forest. The two approach the cave entrance ever so carefully. Lights are off, no noises are heard and motion sensors detect no movement whatsoever. They enter the cave. Panning for points of interest, they then turn on their scanning lasers. Little do they know that Grif was never sleeping. Merely idling because he already slept the entire day, he easily spots the light blue laser beams.

"Hey gu…"

Before Grif could finish what he was saying, a quick punch from Bismarck sends him unconscious. To the dismay of the two scouts, the rest of the Reds and Blues had already woken up after hearing the punch. Before Pierre managed to say "we should go", the Reds and Blues stand in semicircle formation, guns pointing at the two purple agents.

"Step away from the Grif!" Tucker warns the two intruders.

"You dirty scumbags better tell us who you are right now. Or else we'll have to open fire in 10… 9… 7… 6… 4… 2… 1!"

The Reds and Blues fire their weapons.

Bismarck was ready. Just as Sarge says one, he slams the ground. A yellow hemisphere emerges from under the fist on the ground, expanding in under a split-second. A bubble shield appears around Bismarck and Pierre.

Taken aback by this new discovery, Tucker's "What the F***" was followed in quick succession by Donut's "Hey that's not fair!"

The bubble shield expires, revealing that the two agents have been standing there the whole time. In total badass manner, Bismarck cracks his knuckles and neck, while Pierre conducts one more scan of the Reds and Blues.

"Our turn." The thick German voice spooks the Reds and Blues.

With a few "Woah"s and "Oh shit"s, the Reds and Blues become surprised, looking at each other and becoming less vigilant of the purple nightmares running straight towards them. Without a moment's notice, Pierre takes the first strike at Simmons, still shocked by the voice. Bismarck takes the right flank, making a running roundhouse punch to Tucker's face. The force of that punch was so immense that Tucker is sent flying backwards, smashing in the stone wall behind. With the unquestionably strongest fighter among them taken out, the rest were no match. Sure, Lopez's head detaching did take Pierre off guard, giving ample time for Sarge to hit him with a sideways strike using his shotgun. But that was it. With the idiots knocked unconscious (or decapitated), Bismarck and Pierre prepare to run off.

"Freeze. Don't Move," Carolina slowly utters, pointing her gun at the fleeing attackers.

As the black-visor bandits turn back around, Pierre conducts a scan of the two OG Freelancers currently engaging them.

"Wash, ask and you shall receive… Say hello to North and South Dakota," Carolina calmly turns to Wash, who relives some of his worst nightmares.

With Wash being distracted by his haunting memories, Bismarck and Pierre try to escape. Carolina was quick to react, dashing for Bismarck, tackling him into the ground. With Pierre nearly evading capture, Carolina snaps.

"WASH! Grab her NOW!"

Wash stood petrified. Sure, he hated South and ended up killing her. Sure he felt little remorse upon seeing North's dead body. But the sight of more familiar armour loadouts sends him into a world of flashbacks.

"GODDAMMIT WASH! GO GET HER!" Carolina struggles in restraining Bismarck.

Slowly, Wash snaps out of it. He puts away his battle rifle and switches to the Magnum. One-handedly, he gently aims it at the running Pierre.

Gunshot.

The hollow shell of Pierre drops to the ground. Perfect shot straight through the back of the head. As Wash continues to slow-motion lower his weapon, Bismarck yields.

Carolina on top of him, she asks, "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"Agent Carolina of Project Freelancer… "

Bismarck stops talking. Carolina gets furious once again, punching the downed enemy. As Bismarck's head keeps getting tossed left and right, Carolina notices something strange. The visor was flickering. One moment it is black and another, it is default yellow. Once she notices, she stops punching. She holds Bismarck by the chin as she watches the transformation process. The moment the visor became permanently yellow, a panicked voice emerged. No longer German, no longer deep. Just the voice of a guy terrified to death. Body shivering, the guy stutters at first. Eventually, his speech became coherent enough for Carolina to understand.

"Please! Help me! She's… she's…"

Before the frightened man could continue, two soldiers come running to the scene. They interlocked hands, for they had super speed, but only when they were in contact. All they saw was a blur. However, during that short timeframe, the two new attackers, one bright blue and the other bright yellow, managed to knock Carolina far out of the way and carry the corpse of Pierre and the dying Bismarck.

In a secret room within a dark, ruined temple miles away, the speedsters drop off Pierre and Bismarck. Bismarck, with his default visor, continues to mumble to himself. Unintelligible for sure, but he was saying something along the lines of "please don't hurt me." So he just sat there on a chair, hands zip-tied to the back of it. Appearing from the dark, a woman, donning red-and-white armour with a blue visor came to greet them. She steps into the light, carrying a clipboard and a pen.

"Good job, Agents Raleigh and Columbia."

"Thank you, Director AC," they simultaneously respond.

The red-and-white woman, who we will now call AC, dismisses the twin soldiers. Turning to face Agent Bismarck, she takes off her helmet. She goes into a proposal stance (legs forming half of a swastika) in front of the chair. She takes off her helmet, with Bismarck shivering in terror in his seat and trying to stay away from AC as much as possible. AC semi-aggressively reaches out to bring his face closer to hers. As he starts crying and screaming, AC slaps him. Hard.

A large grin forms across her face as she covers his mouth, telling him in such a tender yet intimidating voice, "so you've tasted freedom, huh? Now that Agent Pier… STOP SQUIRMING!" AC slaps him one more time, before continuing, "Let's get you fixed up, shall we?"

She looks around, searching for a particular person, but to no avail.

"AUSTIN!", she yells, agitated more than ever.

A young man, wearing jet black armour and donning a helmet with the default visor, reports to his commanding officer.

"PREPARE THE MACHINE! AND STAND UP STRAIGHT! I DIDN'T TEACH YOU TO SLOUCH, NOW DID I?"


End file.
